


Come Love This World (Come Hate It, Too)

by cedarbranch



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Poetry, Post-Apocalypse, a study of jon's thoughts on poetry from seasons 1-5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:35:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23933170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cedarbranch/pseuds/cedarbranch
Summary: Jon never liked poetry, until Martin.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 14
Kudos: 122





	Come Love This World (Come Hate It, Too)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you jonny for giving me the fact that jon hated poetry until he fell in love with martin... truly the romance of our time
> 
> (title from good light by andrea gibson)

Jon clicks the tape recorder off. The more statements he reads through, the more it seems that the oldest ones are the strangest. This one is no exception—one would expect that if someone were to make up a story about a figure as famous as Wilfred Owen, they would at least try to make it believable. But Jon’s never understood the motivation behind this kind of lie, anyway. Whether it’s from 1922 or 2016, it’s all equally bewildering. 

It’s an intriguing enough premise, he supposes, that the horrors of war Owen wrote of in _Dulce et Decorum Est_ might have been beyond the typical. But in a way, that almost dilutes the meaning of the poem. It’s famous for exposing the savagery of man—humans have never needed monsters to drive them to war. Their own loyalties, and the expectations of how far they’ll be taken, are more than enough. It feels like a disservice to strip it of that meaning.

Jon was never wild about the poem, anyway. He’d read it back in sixth form and hadn’t really understood the hype. Sure, the theme was poignant enough, but the stuffy language and rhythm created a needless barrier between the words and the meaning. If Owen had wanted to show the audience true horror, he could’ve just written prose. 

Jon’s not a big fan of poetry in general. 

Maybe he will reread _Dulce et Decorum Est,_ though. For some insight into the statement-giver’s mind, if nothing else. You’d have to be a pretty big fan of someone’s work to try and create this much of a mythos around their past. 

But then again, Jon has other work to do.

***

Martin lingers by the door, casting a doubtful look over his shoulder, as if Jon is going to suddenly change his mind and have him fired on the spot. When Jon doesn’t say anything, he closes the door, and he’s gone. Jon lets out a slow breath.

His CV. He’d been lying about his goddamn CV. 

In retrospect, this should have been obvious. If someone is out to get Jon, it’s not going to be the man who spends his time making tea and recording spoken word poems. Christ. The poems alone should have been telling enough. Jon can still remember it clear as day: the two of them trapped in a cramped room, waiting for Jane Prentiss to break through. Martin, with a little nervous laugh, explaining why he had a second tape recorder. Nervous, as if being judged by his peers was the thing to be scared of in that situation. 

Had Jon judged him for it? A little bit, yes. 

But it wasn’t any more embarrassing than anything Martin had already done, and nowadays, Jon’s grateful for it. In the sinister landscape that the archives have become, Martin is refreshingly _normal_. Jon’s looked through Sasha and Tim’s desks already, and none of their contents were as reassuring as Martin’s spare books of handwritten poetry. They could almost have been good, if they weren’t so derivative, but it wasn’t their objective value that appealed to Jon so much. They were just… comfortingly mundane.

So, maybe Jon does keep an eye out for any spare pages of Martin’s poetry that he might leave lying around. It makes him strangely uncomfortable, like he’s invading Martin’s privacy—but that’s ridiculous, he’s already done far worse things. This is no different. What should it matter if he’s looking for evidence or just some comfort?

In the end, he doesn’t actually find anything more. He’s not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved.

***

Jon inhales slowly, counting down from four until he can breathe out again. His head swims. The Eye is restless, and its hunger eats away at him, like the twitch of adrenaline and the pull of exhaustion all at once. It hasn’t reached the breaking point yet. He’s weak, but not desperate, not ravenous enough to burst out into the world and rip a statement from whoever’s closest. He can still bear the hunger on his own.

It isn’t much fun, though. 

There’s a quiet knock at his office door. “Come in, Martin,” Jon says tiredly. 

Martin opens the door. “It’s weird how you just _know_ it’s me now,” he says. 

“I can’t exactly stop it. Besides, you always knock the same way,” says Jon. 

Something must show on his face, because Martin stops, looking him over with an unreadable expression. Or, it should be unreadable. Jon knows it’s worry; he can feel it itching at the back of his skull. There’s a faint trace of sadness, too, and anger, though Jon couldn’t say who it’s directed at. 

“How are you feeling?” Martin asks.

“I’ve been better,” says Jon. 

“You still… hungry?” Martin says tentatively. Jon nods, averting his eyes. 

There’s a rustling noise. Jon looks up again. Martin has set a sheet of paper down on his desk. “I brought you this,” he says. “I-it’s not a statement or anything, so it probably won’t do any good, but I thought… I don’t know, it’s words. I guess you could even call it a story. Maybe that’s enough.”

Jon takes it. It’s a poem, printed in a neat, classic font. 

“Did you write this yourself?” he asks. 

“No,” Martin says quickly. “It’s Mary Oliver, I just got it online. It was probably a stupid idea, and it’s pretty short anyway, I just thought it could be—”

“No, don’t worry,” Jon says. “This is…” It’s more than anyone else would do, nowadays. Jon hasn’t even been able to be in the same room with Basira lately without her watching him like a hawk, as if he’ll pounce on an unsuspecting victim the second she turns her back. He clears his throat. “It was very thoughtful of you. Thank you.” 

Martin gives him a small smile. “Yeah, of course. Let me know if you need anything else.”

He slips out of the room, leaving Jon alone to read.

Martin keeps bringing him poems, after that. Sometimes short ones, sometimes long—he seems encouraged by the fact that Jon doesn’t throw them away, and after a while he drops a copy of the _Iliad_ onto Jon’s desk. Jon reads it all. It doesn’t make him any less hungry, but it’s a distraction, and it keeps a note of hope in Martin’s smile. 

That’s all Jon can ask for.

***

The archives feel colder with Martin away.

 _Away_ might not be the right word. He’s still there, locked up in his office. Theoretically, Jon could go in and see him, make him a cup of tea, tell him all the things he’s been saying into his tape recorder. But he would need Martin to open the door for that.

 _Away_ is a fitting enough word.

Jon misses him. Even though Martin seems determined to erase every trace of his presence in the archives, there are memories of him everywhere—in the break room where no one is making tea, between the files marked with post-it notes in his neat handwriting, on the late nights where once, a lifetime ago, Martin might have been sleeping in the back room while Jon stayed to work late. 

Jon is going through an old stack of statements on the Stranger when he finds it: a loose printout of _Wild Geese_ by Mary Oliver, slightly crumpled at the corners. The first poem Martin ever gave him. Even after everything, the coma, the chaos that the archives has fallen into… it’s been here this entire time, hidden away.

Jon stares at it for a long time.

Then he smooths out the wrinkles, as gently as if the paper were centuries old, and goes searching for the rest of the poems. 

He kept all of them. He hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself back when Martin started bringing them, but they were comforting, and he’d built up quite the collection. Going through it now makes his chest constrict. He can attach a memory to every one of them, and they each make him more painfully aware of how long it’s been since Martin last knocked on his door.

But it helps to read through them. As long as he’s reading, he can lose himself in the meter, and for a moment, everything is as it was. He can make believe that Martin will bring him something new as soon as he finishes the pile. 

He doesn’t, of course. 

So Jon starts over from the beginning.

***

Jon and Martin walk out of the Lonely hand in hand. Even once they return to Martin’s flat, they don’t let go. No questions are asked. There is no room for words or shyness or caution; they are far beyond that now. They fall asleep in each other’s arms, and for once, the world is peaceful.

It’s only after they get to the safehouse that the shyness comes.

It’s… different, now that they’re beyond the crisis stage. There’s no unspoken, mutual desperation for contact. They hover at each other’s periphery, always close, but not quite enough to touch. Jon wants to touch. Even as they sleep in the same bed, he waits, unsure, for a signal that he still has permission to draw Martin into his arms. 

It comes one night when Jon is getting ready for bed. 

He changes into his sleep shirt and goes to brush his teeth, trying not to look too hard at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. His hair falls onto his shoulders in loose waves, streaked through with gray from his time in the Lonely. 

Martin comes up behind him with his own toothbrush in hand. He squeezes a bit of toothpaste onto it, giving Jon a sidelong glance. “You okay?” he asks.

“Mm,” says Jon. He spits toothpaste into the sink. “I’m fine. I was just…” He pulls at a lock of gray hair. “I was thinking about dyeing over this.” Then he wouldn’t have to be reminded of it every time he looks in the mirror.

Martin hums noncommittally. Once he’s done brushing his teeth, he says, “I dunno. I kind of like it. Makes you look sophisticated.”

Jon raises an eyebrow. He would’ve expected Martin to want to erase all traces of the Lonely even more than he does. “Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, if you really don’t like it, I’m sure we could go down to the shop and get something, but… I think it’s nice.” Martin reaches out cautiously, his hand hovering by the side of Jon’s face, waiting for permission. Jon leans into it, and Martin runs his hand down the side of Jon’s hair, coming to cup his face. 

“It would always be there, even if you can’t see it,” Martin whispers. “And I’m glad to see it on you. It means we got out.”

He does have a point.

Martin kisses him on the cheek before he leaves the bathroom, gentle and sweet. Jon stands there for a few minutes afterwards, staring at the floor and replaying the moment over and over. When he finally manages to return to the bedroom, Martin is already under the covers, reading. Jon hasn’t seen this book yet.

“What’s that?” he asks, climbing into bed. 

“What, this?” Martin looks at the book’s cover. “Just a poetry collection. Do you know Ocean Vuong?”

“I don’t know many poets,” Jon admits.

Martin laughs. “That won’t be true for long.” He shifts a bit, and it takes Jon a minute to recognize the invitation. Slowly, he moves over so he can lean against Martin, and Martin wraps an arm around his shoulder. Jon exhales slowly. Even blinking feels risky, like it could shatter the precarious position they’re in.

“This is one of my favorites, right here,” Martin murmurs. “Do you want to hear it?”

Jon nods.

So Martin reads. 

It becomes a routine for them. Every night before they fall asleep, they curl up together, and Martin reads out loud to him. It’s always something different, but as time goes on, he starts to trend toward love poems. They’re always affecting, and always beautiful. Laying with Martin is the most peaceful Jon has ever felt. He’s spent so long being afraid, the feeling of comfort is almost alien. He has to let it in cautiously. Each kiss feels like dipping his toes further into the water, and slowly, he finds himself getting used to it. 

Deep in his chest, Jon feels the first hopeful stirrings of what could be joy.

***

There is no joy after the world ends. 

At best, there is a desperate facsimile of comfort. There are the cups of tea that Martin insists on making, and Jon’s decision every time not to remind him they aren’t real. There are very small things that remind them of what it was like to breathe freely. 

Jon wishes he could accept the comforts where they come. It would be so much easier to lean into it, and let the cloying imitations of sweetness bring him a measure of peace. But he knows too well what they really are. He Knows it all.

More often than not, while Martin is busying himself with tea and books and other distractions, Jon sits in silence, tense with concentration. It’s all he can do to keep the raging tide of knowledge out of his mind. It wants to rip him away and send him plunging into the depths of terror, but he won’t let it, even as the Eye’s pupil remains fixed over his head. 

The weight of its gaze presses down on him. It’s a slow, sick vertigo; the world rushes around him, tearing itself to bits in a violent frenzy of fear, and there he sits. Still. Silent. Watching. 

“Jon?” Martin asks.

“Yes,” Jon murmurs.

“Are you… do you need anything?”

“No,” says Jon. “There’s nothing you could do. We’re past that point.”

Martin sighs quietly, as if Jon won’t notice. “Still. If there’s anything that’ll help, even a little bit, I’d do it.”

“I know you would,” says Jon. Martin would do anything to bring things back to the way they were, when asking Jon if he was alright could yield any answer but no, and even the nos were temporary. But that’s all gone now. That world is dead, thanks to him. 

Martin comes and sits down on the bed next to Jon. The mattress creaks. “What are you thinking about?” Martin asks. “Just… the short version, I mean. If you can tell me.”

“People are dying,” Jon says dully. “As always. I assume you don’t want to know their names.”

“N-no. Thanks.”

“They’re confused,” Jon continues. “They don’t know how the world has changed so much. It wasn’t even overnight, it was the blink of an eye. Things were fine, and then…” He laughs bitterly. “And then me, I suppose.”

Martin places his hand over Jon’s and looks him in the eyes. It makes Jon shiver, to be seen by the one he loves, rather than the thing he hates. 

“There’s a quote I keep thinking about,” Martin says quietly. “From Andrea Gibson. ‘When all the good in you starts arguing with all the bad in you about who you really are, never let the bad in you make the better case.’”

“That’s terribly cliche,” says Jon.

“All the truest things are,” says Martin.

He gets up and leaves the room, and for half an instant, Jon wonders if he’ll come back. If the bad in him has won this time, and Martin would rather leave than stay and greet the victor. But then his footsteps approach once more, and Martin comes back inside holding a book. It’s one of his poetry books, the ones he sits in the old armchair and reads when the wind howls too loudly for conversation. 

“Gibson,” he says, sitting back down next to Jon. “Did I ever read you _Good Light?_ ” 

“I don’t think so.”

“Good, I’ve been saving it.” Martin opens the book and thumbs open to a certain page, marked with a lavender sticky note. Jon leans against his shoulder, and Martin begins to read. 

It’s nice, to hear him read his favorites. A little strange, but nice. Jon can tell which lines mean the most to him, partly through his voice—it goes softer, almost reverent, gently drawing the words from the page into the air. But Jon Knows it, too. The knowledge slips into his mind unconsciously—that Martin used to read this one and linger on the lines about religion. _When they told me God was always watching, I said, who wants to worship a diary thief?_

Jon Knows how that line used to comfort him, and how it troubles him, now. 

But Martin doesn’t read it like a eulogy for the ruined world. With the warmth in his voice, he could make almost anything sound beautiful, and when he speaks, all the truly ugly things seem far away. They linger at the edges of Jon’s sight, full of malice and apocalypse, but they’re smaller. All Jon can do is listen. The words draw him in, almost the way they do when he takes a statement, but this time, it’s the love, not the fear, that keeps him captivated.

He wonders what the Ceaseless Watcher thinks of poetry. 

Jon himself has come to like it.

“Come see me in the good light,” Martin reads. “Come tell me what you tell the truth. Come trouble me, come lightning strike.”

Jon inhales deeply. The words feel like an invocation, with the way they call out to him, but it isn’t a demand. It’s a gentle coaxing out of emotion, inviting him to curl his fingers around Martin’s hand and sit there, fondness and gratitude aching heavy in his chest. 

_Come with all your beauty leaving evidence behind, your fingerprints all over the thing that changed my mind, that made me better than I was._

_Come, love, make me better than I was._

_Come teach me a kinder way to say my own name._

_Come knowing I, like everyone, have had my own blood on my hands._

_Come help me to a gentler truth._

When Martin finishes reading, he turns his head and kisses Jon’s cheek. “Good?” he asks.

“Very,” Jon says softly.

Martin smiles. “I knew I’d find an author you liked eventually.”

“I like them all. Whatever you choose, it’s always nice.” Martin always seems to know exactly what Jon needs to hear. It’s jarring to be known so intimately—it’s like Martin can reach straight into Jon’s head, pull out all the troubled thoughts that linger there, and soothe them one by one. Jon had always thought he was good at putting on a mask of calm indifference, but he must have been wrong. 

“I just pick the ones I think you’d like,” Martin says. 

“And how do you know which ones those will be?” Jon asks.

Martin shrugs. “I don’t know. I love you enough to tell.”

“What do you mean?” Jon asks. Martin rubs his thumb idly across Jon’s hand.

“Sometimes they just… feel right,” he says. “They feel like loving you.”

“Or knowing me,” says Jon. 

“I think that can be the same thing, sometimes,” says Martin. 

Jon has to disagree. Knowledge can be intimate, but more often it’s cold, an unfeeling stream of facts and logic. It can’t always be trusted, either—that coldness makes it easy to manipulate. Facts can show an entirely different view depending on how the light shines on them, but love is a truth that burns down to the core, insistent in its irrationality. 

Love is something Jon can trust. Especially when it comes to Martin.

“Are you feeling any better?” Martin asks.

“I don’t know if ‘better’ is the right word,” says Jon. He doesn’t know if there can ever be a _better_ , not really. He’ll always be living with a double dose of fear: both his own, and that which radiates from the world around them. But as much as he is afraid, he is loved in equal measure. And he is infinitely grateful for that. 

“Thank you,” he whispers. “For all of it.”

“Of course,” says Martin. 

“Can you read another?”

Martin smiles and wraps his arm around Jon. “Of course,” he says again. 

Jon closes his eyes and listens.


End file.
